When life sucks
I'm in a good place these days. But this wasn't always the case.
Life was hard, very hard, for a very long time; almost unbearable. So much so that I started to doubt that God loved me. As i type these words, I'm not very proud to admit this. But it's true.
During this long spell of trial after trial, I wrote this song, "The Love of God." Go figure.
I still believed that God was love, that He loved the world. I just wasn't "feeling the love" from Him personally.
Been there? If you have been a Christian for any length of time, I'm guessing you've been there.
Stuff happens. We live in a fallen world. And trying to take comfort in God's Sovereignty can only magnify our soreness. Why? Because if God is Sovereign (and He is), then why does He allow horrible stuff to happen to us?
It's easy to believe that God loves me when I feel that things are going well. But I have also believed and felt God's love when I have faced opposition and persecution.
But when the trials are prolonged, even the most faithful of us can start to question, wonder, even doubt.
Thankfully, God brought me out of that misguided funk. I guess what I want to say is that even when we don't "feel" God loves us personally, He still does. His love never changes, never fades, never ends.
We can know this intellectually, even have all the right verses memorized. But when life sucks...and keeps on sucking...well, it's hard.
God is not disappointed that I am sharing this here. God is all about us being honest with Him, about our feelings, even about our doubts. He can take it.
He knows that if we're smart, we'll come to our senses, come back around to knowing with all our hearts that He loves us deeply and truly, as if we there were only one of us.
His people went through bad stuff all the time throughout the Old and New Testaments. I think we have been sold a bill of goods when we hear that the Christian life is nothing but blessings, abundance, and happiness. It's not.
So how can we be sure of God's love for us personally? Can we rely on our feelings?
We will all endure tough times. And there are more on the way.
So I believe that it is crucial that we dig deep into God's love for us until it becomes unshakable no matter what. Give Him your mustard seed of faith if that's all you've got right now. He can still grow a huge "tree' of faith with it.
If we let Him, God can reveal His love to us in the trials more than He ever could during the "good" times.
I believe in the love of God. I am still dealing with some suck-y situations in my life. But I believe that He loves me personally, no matter what circumstances come my way. This is a gift from God, this faith, this assurance. It makes no sense in the natural, really. When a person treats us poorly, we doubt his or her love toward us.
But when God allows seemingly unbearable things to happen to us, His love can still be trusted. His love is still pure and true and isn't going anywhere. "Though He slay me, I will trust Him."
I pray that our trials will only drive us closer to God, His love, His grace, His goodness. I pray that we no longer doubt, ever, His great, undeserved, vast, deep, wide, high, personal love for each and every one of us.
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